


Retrograde

by blackkat



Series: more of my bad decisions Star Wars edition [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Fix-It, Humor, Jedi Culture, M/M, Mandalorian Culture, Psychometry, Seduction, Snark As Flirting, Undercover as Married
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:40:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Quinlan finds a man frozen in carbonite on Geonosis. That's just the start of his problems.
Relationships: Jaster Mereel/Quinlan Vos, T'ra Saa/Tholme/Nico Diath
Series: more of my bad decisions Star Wars edition [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1763653
Comments: 215
Kudos: 1111
Collections: Jedi Journals, Star Wars Alternate Universes





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is _entirely_ the fault of Sol, who enabled and prompted and laughed at me while I was suffering.

“I'm supposed to be on _vacation_ ,” Quinlan says, tugging his hood tighter over his face to keep out the rust-brown dust the wind is whipping up.

“Jedi do not take vacations,” Tholme says sternly, like T'ra isn't sprawled against his shoulder, her hair blooming freely, and Nico isn't lying with his head in Tholme’s lap. Quinlan gives him the look that deserves, and Tholme sighs a little and relents, “I am sorry for interrupting your leave, Quinlan—”

“Sorry for interrupting it to make me check on your new boyfriend’s ex?” Quinlan asks cheekily, crossing his arms over his chest.

Nico makes a deeply offended sound, and Tholme scowls. Quinlan, not about to take protest from someone who once had a fling with _Dooku_ , raises a brow, and after a long moment Tholme’s scowl deepens and he huffs, which is as good as Quinlan winning. He grins, and Tholme shoots him a dark look but waves a hand.

“Our contacts all hint at Dooku planning something sizeable,” Nico says without lifting his head. His mustache twitches, displeased with the very thought, and Quinlan doesn’t bother hiding his amusement as T'ra reaches down and pats his forehead comfortingly. “And _unsettling_. More so than Dooku is already.”

Well. Quinlan can respect anyone willing to rag Dooku, even if they once snogged. “Senator Amidala sounded pretty sure he was behind the assassination attempt on her,” he says, testing. Given what he heard from Obi-Wan, right before Obi-Wan took off for a lost planet on the trail of a dangerous bounty hunter, the Council hadn’t wanted to believe Dooku was capable of such a thing.

“She has good reason to, given their opposition in political matters,” T'ra says calmly, even as Nico sits up, bristling faintly. “I would not want to doubt a former Jedi, but…”

“But Dooku has always struggled with the Dark Side,” Tholme finishes quietly.

“Additionally,” Nico says briskly, “the fact that Kamino must have been deleted from the Archives by a Jedi makes me incredibly suspicious.”

T'ra chuckles. “One might say that you are a suspicious bastard,” she says fondly, but Nico doesn’t deign to acknowledge this. She shifts, crossing her legs beneath herself and settling, and turns her smile on Quinlan. “Be careful, Quin. Dooku is elsewhere at the moment, but he could return at any time, and if you're caught—”

“I won't be,” Quinlan says with easy confidence. Even if Dooku _is_ a Dark Jedi, Quinlan has an edge. He can get in and out of the facility and be gone before anyone realizes he was even there. “Masters.”

“May the Force be with you,” Nico says, and T'ra blows him a kiss.

“Be careful, be cunning, and be wise,” Tholme says gravely.

“You taught me the first two,” Quinlan tells him, smirking. “But I'm starting to doubt that you taught me the third, given your taste in men.”

“ _Quinlan_ ,” Tholme says, and Nico _bristles_. “Nico Diath—”

“—dated _Dooku_ , I don’t know what you want me to say—”

“It was a _fling_ and there were mitigating circumstance, in my defense—”

T'ra sighs and takes the comm from Tholme, though she’s still smiling, bright and amused. “Force keep you, Quinlan,” she says firmly, over Tholme and Nico. “Comm us if you end up in trouble.”

“Tell Tae to get into some mischief for me,” Quinlan says, and ends the transmission, stepping away from his starfighter. The astromech beeps at him, and he waves a hand, then tells it, “Lock up and wait for me, R7. We might have to leave suddenly.”

The droid whirs pointedly, and Quinlan rolls his eyes. “Yes, I _know_ you’ve been on missions with me before. Just keep things ready, all right?”

It beeps something unflattering about his mission record, but Quinlan ignores it, drawing his hood up a little more against the night wind and picking his way down the steep slope. All of Nico's contacts—and that one scary Bothan Master Quinlan _really_ wants to meet in more than just passing—put Dooku's center of operations here on Geonosis, and the oddity of it itches at Quinlan. The Geonosians are builders, with rumors that they're affiliated with the Baktoid Armor Workshop, and Dooku is supposed to be against war. It’s not something that can't be explained away, but it’s still odd.

There are Geonosians overhead, flights of warrior caste guards with their heavy exoskeletons, as Quinlan crosses the next ridge, then slides down into a rocky crevasse with all the care he can manage. Too many guards, he thinks, keeping one wary eye on them as he slips into the shadows. There's almost no civil unrest on Geonosis, and this many warriors being out and armed is unsettling. Even if Dooku is a paying customer, asking the Geonosians to build him something, there shouldn’t be _this_ level of security.

The narrow passage between the cliffs leads about where Quinlan thought it would when he scouted this area from the air. The building Master Ven’nari fingered as Dooku's main facility is just ahead, an up-thrust jut of hollowed-out rock looming across a stretch of rocky ground, and Quinlan crouches in the shadows, then carefully strips off his right glove. Eyes the empty space, the red dirt, and then grimaces to himself and lightly presses a hand against the bare bump in the soil.

Psychometry takes no prisoners, even for something as big as this. There’s a wrench deep behind Quinlan's spine, hard enough to make his teeth ache, and then images bloom behind his eyes. The doubled awareness—vision and reality—is had to balance, but Quinlan sets his jaw and breathes through it, letting the image of a dozen Geonosian worker drones settle in his consciousness. They're scattered across the space in front of Quinlan, digging in the dirt, planting small objects, smoothing it over.

There's one right in front of Quinlan, and it leans down, claws spearing into the ground right where his hand is. Quinlan's close enough that he can see every ridge in its chitinous armor, and he watches it pull an orb the size of his fist out of its pack, then drop it into the hole and cover it again.

Mines, Quinlan thinks, and lifts his hand, breathing out as the vision shivers and cracks. The drones fade into nonexistence, and Quinlan straightens, tucking his glove back into his sash. There's a lingering press in his mind, an edge that could turn to a headache if he let it, but Quinlan shakes it away and picks his way forward, carefully sidestepping each of the detonators. A wide strip of open ground runs around the edge of the building, and Quinlan is probably on several security feeds right now, but he keeps his pace slow and doesn’t try to rush. Obi-Wan likes to say he has no patience, but—that’s his opinion. Quinlan was trained by _Tholme_. If he didn’t manage to develop a healthy amount of it, he’d have thrown himself off a cliff a very long time ago.

Besides, Obi-Wan is just jealous that Quinlan gets all the undercover work, while he’s stuck flirting with every sentient in three systems in the name of diplomacy.

Grinning a little to himself, Quinlan skirts the edge of the facility, heading for a widow that looks out across the valley. It’s thick transparisteel, but when Quinlan presses his gloved knuckles to it there's no cacophony of alarms, no sudden activation of the defenses. That’s a good enough sign, Quinlan decides, and draws his lightsaber, activating the blade.

Green plasma cuts through transparisteel without hesitation, and Quinlan levitates the melting circle out of the hole, then flips through, landing in a crouch in a rocky, darkened hallway.

For a long moment, he holds where he is, waiting for any sort of reaction from the facility. If there's any alert, though, he can't sense it, and he can't feel any ripple of alarm in the Force. With a faint smirk, he pushes to his feet, clips his lightsaber back to his belt, and then checks both ends of the hall, trying to decide which way to go. Left feels good, so he turns that direction, Force-instinct low but steady as he slips between the darkest patches of shadows, winding his way up through the spire of stone.

It could be Jedi awareness, or it could just be the fact that Quinlan's broken into a hell of a lot of places over his time as a Jedi, but this place feels important. There's something here, something necessary. It bites at Quinlan's spine, adds a sense of urgency to everything, and he pauses in the high, rough-cut arch of a doorway, looking into a small room. There's a containment platform in the center, the kind that’s used to hold Force-sensitives suspended and helpless, and Quinlan's skin crawls. He ducks into the room just as the buzz of wings sounds from up ahead, and tucks himself back into the shadows as a squad of Geonosian warriors march past, carrying weapons.

Quinlan gives it sixty seconds after they pass out of hearing, then pushes away from the wall, circling the platform. For a long moment, he debates touching it, but—

He’s a Jedi. If this is proof of Dooku being up to something, Quinlan needs to know.

“Next time _you_ can take the shitty mission investigating potential Dark Jedi, and _I’ll_ sit around Coruscant having hot threesomes with powerful Jedi Masters,” he mutters, directed entirely at Tholme, and presses his bare hand to the edge of the platform.

A foot scrapes the metal, kicking desperately, half an instant before a scream breaks the air as electricity crackles. Centimeters from Quinlan, a body hits hard, splatters of blood landing right where his fingers are, and it takes effort not to recoil. Effort and training, and Quinlan grits his teeth, forces himself not to move, and looks up.

“Ah, Silas,” a shadow says, and as Quinlan watches he steps forward, comes clear. Dooku, and Quinlan recognizes him instantly, even if he looks a lot more like he had a stick jammed up his ass than the Jedi Master Quinlan remembers from when he was a padawan. “It was so kind of you to offer me more information.”

The man on the dais is shaking, trembling, none of his limbs working as he tries to pull himself up. Quinlan's close enough to see that his eyes are unfocused, dazed, and he looks like he’s been tortured, emaciated and with his skin hanging loose on his bones.

“W-where am I?” Silas manages voice breaking, and the sheer terror in him resonates along Quinlan's bones, shakes through him. “You—what did you do to Jango?”

Dooku clicks his tongue. “Still pretending at loyalty?” he asks, pitying. Quinlan has to grit his teeth, strangling the urge to sweep his feet out from under him; trying won't make him feel better, and it won't change what happened in the past. “You already sold your Mand’alor out more thoroughly than he would ever forgive, Silas. There's no need to put on a front with _me_.”

Silas closes his eyes, face twisting desperately, and he digs his fingers into the platform as he hunches in on himself. His back is bare, and burned into the skin there is a symbol Quinlan _knows_.

“Jango is the last of the True Mandalorian,” Silas whispers. “I follow Jango.”

Dooku raises a brow, circling the platform with gliding steps. He passes right behind Quinlan's boots, so close that Quinlan almost imagines he can feel the brush of Dooku's cloak against his leg. His eyes linger on the True Mandalorian brand on Silas’s back, and there’s something dark on his face, in his eyes.

“Jango Fett is a bounty hunter, disowned by the government of Mandalore, no longer even a citizen,” Dooku says. “But he’s not the last True Mandalorian.”

“I'm not,” Silas breathes, pressing his forehead to the metal. He’s shaking, and Quinlan can feel the way his blood pressure is building, the pace of his heart. “I'm not, I'm not one of them anymore, I can't be, betrayed—”

“My dear boy, who said I was talking about you?” Dooku asks coldly, and the stasis field flares back to life, hauling Silas up into the air with a crackle of electricity. “You’ve been my guest for almost ten years now, haven’t you? But I believe there are still matters left to discuss. Tell me about the True Mandalorians. Every detail.”

But Quinlan can already feel the blurring, twisting mire of Silas’s thoughts greying out, the way his chest is hitching, his heartbeat faltering. The electricity from before was just a little too much in the face of all the damage endured, and Silas slumps in his bonds, shaking, breath wheezing out of his lungs.

“…not the last…” he mumbles, and his eyes close.

The vision breaks with the last beat of his heart.

Slowly, carefully, Quinlan lifts his hand, then rubs his fingers hard against the cloth of his tabard, trying futilely to scrub away the feeling of Silas’s death. It rings in his head, the shattering, the way life leeched out and disappeared, taking the vision with it, and Quinlan closes his eyes for a long moment, then takes a breath and lets it out, long and careful.

This has something to do with Jango Fett. Somehow Dooku managed to get his hands on survivors of the True Mandalorians, kept one to torture and did…something else with the other. But the other clearly isn't someone he can shake down for answers, if he was relying on Silas for information, and that’s interesting. It means they're either unable to answer or important enough that Dooku won't even try, or that he _can't_ ask them. Maybe Dooku is hiding the fact that he’s digging. Or—

Quinlan rocks back on his heels, digging his thumbnail into the seam of his boot as he considers. The debacle on Galidraan was years ago now, but—every True Mandalorian there was killed except for Jango Fett. Dooku's presence at the Temple in the aftermath probably means that he wasn’t combing the battlefield for survivors to smuggle out in the aftermath, so that puts the odds on it being someone who wasn’t _on_ Galidraan. But there can't be many people who fit, or they would have rescued Jango and gone back to their war on Death Watch. So—maybe someone who was captured before that?

Even more than that, the True Mandalorians are _gone_. What information can Dooku possibly want from them?

He could, technically, leave now and report all of this to Tholme, because Dooku torturing a Mandalorian for ten years will probably kick up enough fuss in political circles that other Jedi will be sent to investigate, or at the very least Dooku will have to shift operations. Quinlan had reservations on a nice tropical planet with lots of sunshine, and if he leaves now he might even manage to make them.

But.

Rocking forward, Quinlan rises to his feet, flicking a glance at the hallway outside. There's still an itch beneath his skin, like this isn’t anywhere close to the sum total of the place’s secrets, and he sighs through his nose, draws his hood up a little tighter, and slips back into the hall.

Tholme _definitely_ owes him for this one. _And_ he’s going to have to be the one to tell the healers why Quinlan is out and working when they’d specifically told him to take a week off.

There's a guard at the next intersection of halls; Quinlan can feel their minds, sharp and alert, and rather than pick a fight he veers off, retreating back the way he came and finding another passage. This one splits off in several directions, and Quinlan studies all of them for several moments, trying to pick out which one he needs. At this point, he doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to be looking for here, and that doesn’t help at all. A prisoner, most likely, unless hasn’t actually captured that other True Mandalorian yet.

If he _hasn’t,_ though, that raises more questions. Why hasn’t this person declared themselves? The New Mandalorians, given their disavowal of their heritage in general, seem the type who would rush to condemn anyone restarting the True Mandalorians, and any True Mandalorian still alive would probably be looking to join up with their old Mand’alor. Jango Fett definitely hasn’t turned up with any new lackeys in tow recently, not that Quinlan's heard. Just his son.

A rattle of wings and a buzz of hive-minds approaching shoves Quinlan out of his thoughts, and he turns, moving on instinct, and ducks into one of the passages leading up towards the spire. The corridor is empty, and Quinlan moves quickly, keeping his footfalls as muffled as possible as he follows the long, sweeping curve of it. One hand on the hilt of his lightsaber, one eye trained ahead, Quinlan reaches out as subtly as he can, casting his mind out. The Geonosians are the only ones he can feel in the building, though if Dooku's shielding himself Quinlan probably wouldn’t be able to pick him out. Still, it’s a little confusing; there's something _here_ that Quinlan needs to find, some kind of important piece he’s missing. If he can just figure out what it is—

The passageway turns, turns, _drops_.

Quinlan catches himself just in time, several hundred meters of empty air suddenly beneath his boots. A few pebbles go clattering down, but the apparent landing platform for flying Geonosians doesn’t draw any stares, raise any alarms. Carefully, Quinlan takes a breath, then shifts back, assessing the drop. Not enough to kill a Jedi, but that’s a hell of a mistake to make in the middle of an infiltration all the same.

Still. It’s an opportunity, too. It’s dark enough now that Quinlan has to strain to see much of anything, and he eyes the craggy side of the building, the spurs of rock that sweep out into wings, and grins. Dodging guards is one thing, and Quinlan's decent at it, but this looks like it will be a hell of a lot easier.

Leaping up, Quinlan catches the edge of the doorway, then hauls himself up, getting a foot on the stone and jumping to catch the next spur of stone. The building isn't sheer; it slopes, getting narrower as it goes, and Quinlan can't quite walk up the side, but it’s not that much harder. He makes his way up, careful to tuck himself back into heavy shadow and go still whenever patrols pass, but no one seems to be actively looking for intruders. They're all alert, but for something else, and Quinlan thinks of Nico's words and can't help the grim feeling that settles in the pit of his stomach.

Something’s happening. That’s definitely true. He just needs to get some hint as to _what_.

About three-quarters of the way up, just as the slope becomes something practically impassable without wings or the Force, Quinlan pauses to catch his breath, settling on the ledge of a darkened window that looks wide enough to hold him safely and leaning back, closing his eyes. His arms burn, and he’s pretty sure this isn't what the Healers meant when they told him light exercise only. Still, it’s better than getting shot at by giant insects, and he grimaces and tries to rub out the soreness, keeping half of his attention on the room behind him. There's a single light, pale and hardly enough to reach the window, but it casts strange shadows. The place looks like an art exhibit, or maybe a museum’s storage room; everything is cluttered and close together, and Quinlan tries to pick out familiar shapes.

There's a near-Human shape with no mind attached that’s probably a suit of armor on a stand, several standing shelves with racks holding weapons Quinlan can only partially identify, statues set back against the walls, crates filling the rest of the space. Given that the Geonosians are a species that favor industry above everything else, it’s not all that surprising that art is relegated to a back room somewhere, Quinlan thinks, eying it. A flicker of curiosity rises, and he pauses, considering. But…it doesn’t _feel_ like a bad idea, and Quinlan's had plenty of experience telling bad ideas apart from Force-driven impulses.

Deciding that’s good enough for him, Quinlan twists around to press a hand to the glass, then focuses. He’s not Mace, able to find the shatterpoints in anything just by looking at them, but breaking glass isn't exactly _hard_. He layers pressure over it, presses down until the pane starts to creak, and then gives it one hard shove.

The glass explodes inward, and Quinlan flings out a hand, catching the shards before they can hit as he slithers through the opening. Carefully, neatly, he settles them on the floor under the window, then straightens, eyeing the room. There doesn’t seem to be any order to things, but they're not the sort of items Geonosians tend to look for, even when they do collect art. There's a whole shelf of old-fashioned sabers, then fencing foils, narrow and elegant. Quinlan grimaces to himself, then deliberately reaches out and brushes his bare fingertips over the closest one, and is entirely unsurprised to get a flash of Dooku holding it, balancing it between his hands. The space around them definitely doesn’t look like any sort of reputable business, and Quinlan glances around, cataloguing the illegal weapons on the walls, the canine Bothan with her arms folded.

Some kind of smuggler or fence, Quinlan thinks, and lifts his hand, letting the room fade back to its cluttered reality. Dooku's storing illegal and ill-gotten things here, keeping his nose clean as the count of Serenno. That makes sense, given how he’s put himself in the spotlight recently. There's a definite logic—

Low and swift, a flash of silver elegance passes the window, and Quinlan jerks around to look. A solar sailer trails past, quickly dropping to land, and Quinlan can _feel_ the mind aboard, a tightly lashed control and focus. Instantly, he jerks his own awareness back, shields himself and drops low so even his silhouette won't be visible. Cursing, Quinlan checks the door, hardly visible through the crates and racks, and wonders what the hell he did to deserve Dooku crashing his mission right in the middle of it.

He can't stay. Dooku was a Master, and he’ll spot Quinlan as soon as he thinks to look. And if he _is_ neck-deep in the Dark Side, the way Nico and Tholme and T'ra suspect, he’s going to be running on paranoia and rage, so he _will_ look.

Muttering another oath he picked up on Kashyyyk, Quinlan ducks towards the door, more willing to make Dooku chase him through the narrow hallways than just sit around on the outside of the building, waiting to get sniped by Geonosian warrior drones. There's no definite path, and he shoves past a stand of old-style swords, around the rack of Mandalorian armor in the middle of the room, and—

Frozen in a silent scream, a face bursts out of a slab of stone.

With a hiss, Quinlan recoils, wrenching his lightsaber from his belt. Heart in his throat, he raises it, igniting the blade, and the wash of green light throws what startled him into sharp relief.

It’s a man, probably Human, frozen in a block of carbonite. His hands are bound in front of him, and he looks like he was fighting right up until the last moment, face still set in lines of fury. Quinlan stares at him for a long beat, then takes a breath and straightens.

“Well, thanks for that, man,” he mutters, and checks the controls on the wall beside the block. There's no indication how long the guy’s been frozen, or who he is, but…

Quinlan thinks of Silas, of Dooku's words. He casts a glance at the Mandalorian armor on its stand, grey and red, and the stylized Mythosaur skull insignia on the shoulder pauldron. Looks back at the poor bastard Dooku had frozen, then pulls a face and reaches for the controls.

“You could be the worst shithead in the galaxy and you still wouldn’t deserve what happened to Silas,” he tells the man, and winces faintly at the loud, ringing thump as the carbonite hits the ground, then topples back to rest against the wall. Quickly, he drags the dial around, then hits the switches above it, and deactivates his lightsaber as the carbonite starts to glow dully.

This is stupid. Quinlan's going to have a hard enough time getting _himself_ out without Dooku cutting him in half. Trying it with someone suffering hibernation sickness at _best_ is going to get him killed. But—

But Quinlan's a Jedi. Dooku's got some poor bastard frozen in carbonite, sitting in his private collection like a piece of ugly art. This guy’s likely one of the True Mandalorians, and the Jedi are responsible for their slaughter, even if they were lied to in order to get them to that point. Tholme made sure that Quinlan had a solid sense of responsibility, and Quinlan's always known just how important duty is. Obi-Wan can call him reckless and rude and undignified all he wants, but they're both Jedi. They both have a duty, and Quinlan's always known that.

One life saved isn't a hell of a lot in the scheme of things, but it’s a hell of a start even so.

With a hiss of transforming gas, the carbonite dissipates, and Quinlan steps in to catch the man as he falls, grunting at the impact that knocks him back two steps. Quickly, he slides down to his knees as the man’s limbs jerk like he’s still trying to fight whoever froze him to begin with, pins arms and legs before the man can knock anything over, and hisses, “Easy, easy, you're fine, it’s just hibernation sickness. I got you out, just calm down.”

There's a jerk, a gasp. The man’s eyes are open wide, straining unseeing, and he grabs for Quinlan's arm. Quinlan jerks his bare hand back, letting Dooku's prisoner grab the cloth of his sleeve instead, and presses his gloved hand flat against the man’s chest. “My name’s Quinlan Vos,” he says, and hesitates over telling the man his title. It’s not like the Mandalorians and the Jedi have a good history together, but—

“Jedi,” the man rasps, and Quinlan blinks, then raises a brow.

“Yeah,” he says, bemused. “Jedi Master. How’d you know?”

“Robes and boots,” the man manages, and his grip tightens on Quinlan's arm as he struggles to push himself up. Quinlan helps him, hooking an arm behind his back, and keeps his shoulder braced against the stranger’s, holding him up. “Only a Jedi would stage a rescue in boots like that.”

Quinlan snorts, not about to argue. “The one time I actually wear a robe on a mission,” he laments, and the man gives him as much of an unimpressed look as he can manage when he can't quite pinpoint where Quinlan's face is. “Besides, the boots are quiet. If I'm sneaking around a place, I don’t want to stomp around like some Mandalorian.”

The man scoffs, but he raises a shaky, uncoordinated hand to his face, scrubs at his eyes, then seems to catch himself doing it and jerks his hand away. Hiding vulnerability, Quinlan thinks, and doesn’t comment.

“Where am I?” the man asks. “There was—Monstross, and someone else—”

Quinlan doesn’t have any sort of idea who that is, and he shrugs. “You’re on Geonosis,” he says. “In the personal collection of the Count of Serenno. Dooku must have picked you up somewhere.”

“Montross,” the man says, sharp and angry, and his hand clenches around Quinlan's arm. “This is—a fortress?”

“Yeah. And Dooku just turned up. We need to get back to my ship.” Quinlan eyes the door, then the man, and pulls a face. This would be a lot easier if he still had a padawan around to help him with the heavy lifting.

The man’s expression twists, dismay and determination in equal measure, and he nods shortly. “Help me up,” he orders, and Quinlan rolls his eyes at the tone but rises, carefully hauling him to his feet as well. “H-how far?”

“Too far,” Quinlan says grimly, but pauses. “I think Dooku has your armor, too.”

The man stills, breath rasping. He trembles for a moment, eyes closing, and asks raggedly, “Grey and red? With yellow markings?”

“Yeah.” Quinlan holds him upright as he steers him in that direction, then looks the armor over. Takes a breath, but—

Asking him to leave it here is like asking a Jedi to leave their lightsaber behind. Quinlan isn't _that_ much of an asshole.

“Come on,” he says gruffly. “You’re going to have to help me figure out how to get it on you. I've stripped a lot of people over the years, but Mandalorians tend to try to shoot Jedi more often than they sleep with them.”

“It’s hardly a crime to have taste,” the man retorts, but he settles on the floor where Quinlan sets him down, blind eyes turning towards his armor. For a moment, his expression twists, and then he says quietly, “Thank you, Jedi. I'm Jaster Mereel, and you have my gratitude.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jaster Mereel.

Quinlan thinks he does a pretty karking good job of not showing his reaction as he armors up the _kriffing Mand’alor_. Jaster Mereel was the one who tried to reform and unite the Mandalorian clans, who headed the True Mandalorians during the Mandalorian Civil War, who was _killed_ more than twenty years ago. Tholme drilled all of Jaster's reforms into Quinlan's head when they were studying the Mandalorians, and Quinlan had to write kriffing _essays_ about his revisions to the Canons of Honor and the Supercommando Codex.

And Dooku had him. Dooku had the previous Mand’alor trapped in carbonite and sitting around his collection of black-market swords like some kind of prize.

Carefully, quickly, he buckles Jaster's chestplate into place, then hesitates over the last piece. “Helmet?” he asks, but Jaster is already shaking his head.

“I won't be able to hear,” he says, and Quinlan snorts a little, but tucks the helmet under his arm, careful not to let it brush skin.

“What, don’t trust a Jedi to get you out of here in one piece?” he asks, and gets his arm under Jaster's again. “Ready?”

Grimly, Jaster gets an arm up, catches clumsily at Quinlan's shoulder for a moment before he can make his fingers grip, and then digs in. He grits his teeth, making an effort even though Quinlan ends up having to do most of the work of getting him to his feet, and then wavers there for a long beat before he manages to find his balance.

Maybe, Quinlan reflects ruefully, mentioning the armor was a mistake. It’s _heavy_ , and Jaster wasn’t exactly a lightweight to begin with.

He doesn’t mean it. Not _exactly_. But Jaster does make a hell of a lot more noise than Quinlan as they stagger up the hall. He’s still uncoordinated, shaky from the hibernation sickness, and Quinlan's a hell of a long way from feeling optimistic about their chances here. Dooku's on the lower floors, probably coming their direction, and Quinlan's ship feels an impossibly long distance away. If they can get to another landing platform, Quinlan might be able to launch them out over the field of mines, but—

He’s not feeling overly optimistic about that, either.

Any sort of transmission in the fortress is a risk, but Quinlan eyes his comm, then grimaces. Clicks it on, just as a sudden, arctic _awareness_ lances down his spine, and says, “R7, fire up the engines and come get me. Hurry.”

R7 beeps victoriously, and Quinlan hisses at it. “If you say _I told you so_ , you boltbag, I'm going to—”

There's a buzz that’s the astromech equivalent of flipping him off, and Quinlan groans. “Send a message to Tholme, if you're not too busy having a snit,” he tells it. “Tell him Dooku is here and I found one of his prisoners—”

With a crackle, his comm dies, and Quinlan curses. Communications blackout, then—they must have done something to kill all outgoing signals in the building. Tightening his hold on Jaster, he hauls him forward, picking up his pace, and says grimly, “Sorry, we’re both going to hate this, but we need to get out.”

“Save your apologies, Jedi,” Jaster says, unimpressed. “Who exactly is it you're so scared of? Is a count really that much of a threat?”

Quinlan rolls his eyes, hauling Jaster's heavy ass around another corner. They just need to get somewhere open to the air, where R7 can find them, but he’s not seeing any options. “Count Dooku,” he says. “He used to be a Jedi before he left the Order.”

“Left?” Jaster rasps, stumbling. Quinlan hitches him up, wincing as the edges of his armor dig into his side. “Or was kicked out?”

“Left,” Quinlan says distractedly. “After Galidraan, and then Qui-Gon dying—”

“Galidraan?” Jaster turns his head, like he’s listening behind them, and Quinlan catches a flicker of the hive-mind, approaching with intent, and turns sharply, pulling Jaster down a smaller corridor.

“Seeing anything yet?” Quinlan asks, because he _knows_ Dooku knows they're here, with a sinking certainty that his inability to sense anything concrete only heightens. If Jaster can at least see by himself, it will make things that much easier.

“Do you really think I’d be hanging on your arm if I was?” Jaster counters, and then asks, “Galidraan?”

Quinlan opens his mouth to answer with something flippant, then slams it shut, realizing with a cold flicker that Jaster died before Galidraan. He doesn’t _know_ that the True Mandalorians are all dead outside his son. Doesn’t know that Dooku was directly involved in all of that, killed a lot of them himself. That the Jedi were at fault, for failing to realize that they were being used as blunt weapons in the Death Watch’s war efforts.

“Bantha shit,” he mutters, but—he already said it, and he’s a dumbass, but he can't brush it off. There's no easy way to break the news, either, and Quinlan's terrible at emotional shit anyway, so— “The Death Watch laid a trap for the True Mandalorians on the planet Galidraan. The guy in charge was in bed with them, told the Jedi it was the True Mandalorians killing civilians and political dissidents, and Dooku lead the strike team. It was a slaughter. They didn’t find out until later what had happened.”

There's a long, long moment of silence beyond Jaster's rasping breaths, and then his hand fists tight in Quinlan's robes. “All of them?” he whispers.

“Not Jango,” Quinlan says, and Jaster's next exhale shakes.

“No wonder Dooku hung on to me,” Jaster says, an edge of viciousness to his voice. “A blasted _trophy_.”

“He wants something from you,” Quinlan says. “I don’t know what, but he was willing to torture someone to death to get it just a few days ago—”

Jaster snorts. “If he wants it, I don’t want him to get it,” he says flatly. “I don’t suppose he’s someone you can beat?”

Quinlan rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t bristle, if only because raising Aayla was _terrible_ for his ego. If Jaster thinks his cutting remarks can rival those of a teenage girl in a snit, he’s in for some disappointment. “Dooku was one of the best swordsmen in the Order. If he wanted to challenge me to a game of undercover work, I’d kick his ass, but with a lightsaber? My Master _might_ have been able to beat him before he started spending all his time having threesomes, but it would be close.”

With a quiet scoff, Jaster hauls himself up a little higher on Quinlan's shoulder, head turning. “I can't—” he starts, and then breaks off, frustration in his voice.

He’s honestly doing a hell of a lot better than most people with hibernation sickness that Quinlan has encountered. The disorientation is hardly noticeable, and the muscle weakness is manageable, but for a man like Jaster that’s definitely too much vulnerability even so.

“Not too much further,” he says, even though that’s probably not true. “If we can get out of here, I can contact Tholme and he’ll have the Council send reinforcements.”

And even if all Tholme gets is R7’s interrupted transmission, that will at least alarm him enough that he’ll do _something_. Come himself, maybe, and if Dooku captures Quinlan, a strike team of Tholme, T'ra, and Nico is hardly something to thumb his nose at.

“No offense intended, but I’d rather it doesn’t come to that,” Jaster rasps. His boot catches on the stone, and he stumbles, almost overbalancing Quinlan completely. With a curse, Quinlan hauls them both back upright, then shoulders his way through a door and out of the path of several squads of Geonosians approaching. There's another door on the far side of the room, a wide transparisteel window looking out over the valley, and Quinlan looks from one to the other, debating. He’s probably close enough for R7 to pick up his signal and find them, but getting trapped, even in a room this size, is—

“Jedi?” Jaster asks, tense.

“We’re near the edge of the building,” Quinlan says, and feels Jaster get it, the tightening of his grip.

“How far is Dooku?” Jaster asks.

Quinlan shakes his head, grimacing. “I have no idea. He’s a swamp-rat bastard, but—”

“Ah. Tholme’s wayward padawan. I should have known it was you from the destruction that followed.”

Quinlan wrenches around, leaps back, dragging Jaster with him, just as Dooku sweeps through the open doorway, cloak flaring around him. His expression is set in cold lines, and his gaze is sharp, arctic.

“Dooku,” Quinlan says, more for Jaster's benefit than out of any sense of politeness. “This is a pretty big change from being considered for a seat on the Council. Torturing people to death your new hobby? Most people take up needlepoint. Or woodworking.”

Dooku's expression slides ever so faintly into distaste, and Quinlan grins. “I see you have Tholme’s attitude,” he says. It’s not intended to be a compliment. “He sent you, I assume.”

“Well, him and Nico,” Quinlan says judiciously, and takes a step back towards the window as Dooku's eyes narrow sharply.

“Nico,” Dooku repeats, politely arctic. “Nico _Diath_?”

Quinlan smirks. “Yeah, you know him? About this tall, mustache, likes to piss off Hutts and free slaves in his spare time? I don’t think he’s ever mentioned you.”

“Nico Diath is a short-sighted fool with a mouth that will get him killed in short order,” Dooku says. “It is a shame Tholme has set himself up for such mourning.”

Retreating another step, Quinlan rolls his eyes. “Tholme's other big love is a _Neti_ ,” he says. “They're fine. And they're cute, you know? Geriatric love and all that.”

“Nico always was one to challenge good taste,” Dooku says contemptuously. “Taking up with _Tholme_ —”

“Hey, man, that’s my Master your hissing about,” Quinlan interrupts, slightly offended, and when Dooku looks at him like he’s something Dooku just scraped off his boot, Quinlan shrugs. “Nico's taste has at least improved since _you_.”

Dooku looks him over narrowly, then flicks a glance at Jaster. Sweeps his cloak back, one overdramatic motion, and touches the curved hilt of his lightsaber. “Return my prisoner,” he says. “This has nothing to do with the Jedi Order.”

Quinlan scoffs. “You're keeping the last of the True Mandalorians in your art collection,” he retorts. “I think it has something to do with us. If the clans knew, you’d have the whole collection of them after your head.”

Dooku's lip curls. “Mandalore is no longer a threat,” he says. “Their culture is gone, and their pride has been surrendered into the Duchess’s hands, where it will remain quite safe.”

Jaster twitches, stiffens. He looks like he wants to ask, but Quinlan keeps his mouth shut, keeps guiding Jaster back towards the window as Dooku advances.

“That’s your opinion, man,” Quinlan says. “I know at least one Mandalorian who’s going to be karking _pissed_ at you. Jango Fett isn't an enemy I’d want, you know?”

Dooku doesn’t show his reaction, but Quinlan can feel it: one brief, sharp spike of concern, one flare of denial followed by a quick slide into calculation. He _really_ doesn’t like that idea, Quinlan thinks, but there's no reason one bounty hunter should worry Dooku, as a former Jedi. Unless—

Unless Jango is _working for him_ , and in close enough contact to be an immediate threat.

“You _did_ order Senator Amidala’s assassination,” he says, realization striking. “You had Jango do it. That’s who shot Zam Wesell after she failed.”

There's a long, long moment of silence as Dooku watches him. Then, finally, he shifts, drawing his lightsaber. “A fool, but not a senseless one, I see,” he says coldly. “Tell me, Quinlan, are Tholme's fears about you correct? Are you going to fall to the Dark Side?”

The hum of a red lightsaber igniting isn't nearly the surprise it should be.

Quinlan grits his teeth. He _knows_ Tholme worries about him, knows all too well how close he walks to the shadows. It’s something he’s always struggled with, and always will. But knowing that Tholme must have said something to Dooku, knowing that he was _that_ worried—

“It sounds,” Jaster rasps, “like he’s not the one who fell. Perhaps you shouldn’t cast stones at someone who’s still bothering to fight, Count Dooku.”

“This is a Jedi matter,” Dooku retorts, cool. “A Mandalorian has no say.”

But he has a point, and Quinlan breathes in, breathes out. “Take your helmet,” he murmurs, barely audible, and sees the faintest jerk of Jaster's head in acknowledgement. Quinlan shifts like he’s resettling Jaster, staggers a little. Jaster's fingers catch the edge of his helmet, and with a jerk Quinlan draws his lightsaber, twists, and catches the red blade that’s dropping towards him.

“Passable instincts,” Dooku says, watching as Quinlan strains, trying to hold Jaster and the blade at the same time. “It’s a wonder you weren’t killed before this if that’s the sum total of your skill, Quinlan.”

Quinlan growls, then lashes out with a boot aimed right for Dooku's stomach. He jerks back, disengaging, and Quinlan takes two staggering steps in retreat. Not an act, this time, but it gives him space, and he asks, “Trust me?”

“Not in the least,” Jaster answers, but he grabs Quinlan's arm and heaves himself mostly upright, his other hand going to the holstered blaster at his side.

Quinlan laughs. “Three steps back,” he says. “Don’t crack your head open.”

“Pay attention to the Dark Jedi,” Jaster retorts, and lets go. It’s just in time; Quinlan lunges to meet Dooku, blade sweeping up to collide with the red ‘saber with a crackle. Instantly, Dooku disengages, sidesteps, and Quinlan has to throw himself down to avoid his thrust. He hits the ground and rolls, comes up with both hands on the hilt of his lightsaber—

Dooku's hits it, sweeps it to the side as he slips right past Quinlan's guard and knocks him back, and Quinlan hisses, scrambling up. He’s half a second too slow; another twist of Dooku's lightsaber knocks his wide, and then Dooku is right in front of him, raising a hand. A wrench of the Force hauls Quinlan up off the ground by the throat, but he flips his lightsaber out, sweeps it across and almost slashes right across Dooku's eyes. Dooku recoils, losing his grip, and Quinlan hits the ground on his feet, lunges low and fast and twists around the lash of Dooku's blade, comes up swinging hard.

Dooku's blade hits his, forcing it down, and one hand lashes out, faster than Quinlan can dodge. He grabs Quinlan's bare wrist—

Dooku drops smoothly to one knee in the darkness, a hooded figure on the dais glowing blue. “Lord Sidious,” he says formally, with a obsequiousness in his voice that jars wrong down Quinlan's spine. “Our predictions were correct. It is indeed Jango Fett who has proved himself most adept.”

“Good, good. Offer him the contract, my apprentice. Be sure he knows the clones’ ultimate purpose. I believe it will make him…far more agreeable.”

Sidious, Quinlan thinks, and looks up at the figure before the window. Dark Lord Sidious, and he commits the name to memory. Looks, and _feels_ the Dark Side burning through him, and watches him turn—

The hooded head tilts, and the grip on Quinlan's wrist shifts, and he hits the ground on his knees with a choking cry as electricity burns through him.

“Ah,” Dooku says right over him, pleased, cruel with it. “I’d forgotten that little talent of yours, Quinlan. How…inconvenient that the Force chose you for such a burden. Tell me, what do you see when you touch me? The injustices of the Jedi?”

Quinlan can't answer. There's a face burned into his mind, lightning burning across his nerves. He can't breathe, can't speak, every muscle convulsing—

“A shame you have to bear the burden of your ego,” Jaster says flatly, and there's the crack of a blaster firing twice in quick succession. Dooku jerks away, lightsaber flashing up to deflect the bolts, and Quinlan doesn’t hesitate. He twists, slams a booted foot right into Dooku's ankle, and then throws his shoulder against his hip. Stumbling, Dooku wrenches around to stay on his feet, but Quinlan is already scrambling upright as best he can.

“Jaster, the window behind you!” he calls, and Jaster, still slumped on the ground, both hands on his blaster, twists to face it. Quinlan throws a hand up as the blaster fires, and Dooku snarls as he’s hurled backwards, right out of the room. The door panel beeps as Quinlan forces the button down, and it closes with a hiss. One of the fancy tables along the walls flies across the room to block it, and Quinlan lets out a breath, staggers all the way upright, and heads for Jaster at a run.

“Nice shot,” he says, grinning, and Jaster grabs his shoulder again as he’s hauled to his feet. Behind them, there's a crackling hiss as a lightsaber cuts through the door, and Quinlan throws out a hand, calling his own blade back to him, and clips it to his belt as they stagger to the shattered window.

“I was aiming for the sense of smug superiority,” Jaster says. “Did I manage to miss you?”

“I give you a compliment and get bullied in return,” Quinlan says, though his heart isn't in it. “Talking to you is just like talking to Obi-Wan.” He swallows, some part of his mind still stuck in that dark room with the lighted dais, and has to breathe out carefully as he steps up onto the edge of the window. There's a strong wind whistling past, and he can hear the buzz of wings, the thrum of engines. “Come on, R7,” he mutters, and—

With a loud boom, the door explodes inward, metal and bits of wood going flying. Quinlan turns, carefully balancing Jaster, and faces Dooku as he stalks closer, cloak billowing in the breeze.

“Trust me?” Quinlan breathes.

“To get us both killed?” Jaster retorts, but his arm anchors over Quinlan's shoulder, gripping tightly.

“You cannot escape,” Dooku says sharply. “This entire world will be hunting you, and you are not Tholme.”

“Tholme's banging your ex,” Quinlan retorts, and hears a whirr that’s almost drowned out by the wind. He grins. “I'm okay not being him.”

Dooku's expression goes _arctic_ , and he raises a hand that’s crackling with lightning. Lashes out, and Quinlan throws himself and Jaster both backwards, right out into open air. Flips, right over the lightning, and drops—

Right into the cockpit of the starfighter that R7 brings up beneath them.

“You're the _best_ boltbag,” Quinlan says, almost dizzy with relief, and dumps Jaster into the seat, ignoring his sound of protest. He stays on his feet as R7 pilots the fighter up, and gives Dooku, standing in the frame of the window, a mocking salute.

R7 beeps loudly at him, smug, and Quinlan rolls his eyes but obediently drops into the seat so it can close the cockpit. A moment later, they’re hurtling away from the spire of rock, rising towards open space, and Quinlan immediately reaches for the comm unit.

“I doubt Dooku or the Geonosians are about to let us go that easily,” he says grimly, and squishes himself back as best he can in the seat, practically on Jaster's lap. “R7, keep an eye on our tail, I don’t think the Geonosians have a lot of starfighters, but—what?”

R7 repeats itself, beeping urgently, and Quinlan checks the radar and curses.

“What is that?” Jaster asks sharply, and his hands clutch at Quinlan's sides. “What is happening?”

“Some kind of droid fighter, I'm not seeing any life-signs on board,” Quinlan says grimly, as their ship hurtles through the last layer of atmosphere and into the darkness of space. “R7, open a commlink to Master Tholme.”

R7 whirrs, clicks. The comm light goes on, and Quinlan says quickly, “Master Tholme, we need reinforcements on Geonosis, Dooku is here and he’s the Sith’s new apprentice.”

A crackle of static answers him, and the comm light dies an instant later.

“Fracking hell,” Quinlan mutters, and grabs for the controls. “I— _what_?”

“More droids?” Jaster asks darkly.

“Kriff. A whole _swarm_ of them,” Quinlan answers, watching the number of dots on the screen multiply exponentially. “R7, get us out of here. Where’s our hyperspace ring?”

“Hopefully not blown to bits by those droids,” Jaster says. Quinlan can feel the tight burn of his anger, tamped down and directed at his own helplessness, the surge of frustration at his fuzzy thoughts, his blindness.

“No, R7’s got it,” Quinlan says, and the fighter slows just long enough to dock the ring, then picks up speed again. But—

Those droid fighters are closing, long and sleek, the whole swarm of them gaining speed.

“Kriff,” Quinlan mutters, and he’s more used to getting chased by goons with blasters than a fleet of fighters. A barrage of shots nearly hits them, and Quinlan curses and sends them into a dive. “R7, any rotation now.”

A blast skims the ring, and R7 shrieks. Quinlan pulls them up hard, rising instantly and takes a shot at the closest droid. It goes down, but two more rise to replace it, and he snarls. “R7—”

R7 beeps abuse at him, and Quinlan rolls his eyes. “I'm _trying_ , but if you didn’t notice, there are a lot of them.”

Another flurry of shots almost skims them, and Quinlan sends them into a roll, feels Jaster's arms go tight around his waist, and winces. “Just hang on,” he says.

“It’s not as if I can do anything else,” Jaster says, sharp, and Quinlan grimaces.

“Everyone deserves a nice, easy, rescue,” he says. “Just sit back and enjoy it.”

“The _Sith_ means that this is _not_ an easy rescue,” Jaster counters, and Quinlan snorts.

“Hey, man, you could have gotten Tholme for this,” he retorts. “He’d be a lot grumpier about sitting in your lap for this bantha shit.”

There's a low breath that’s almost amusement, a faint tightening of Jaster's grip. “I assume, from Dooku's accusations, that you're not much of a prize,” he says dryly.

“Dooku's a bastard, and if you're going to be like that, I might as well ship you back to him.” Quinlan catches a glimpse of a trio of droids swooping towards them and jerks the yoke hard, sending them into another roll as shots streak past them. “R7, that hyperspace jump can happen any time now.”

R7 whirrs, and Quinlan's fingers tighten around the controls. “What do you _mean_ it’s not responding?”

A series of angry beeps.

“Kriff,” Quinlan mutters. “But we can jump a short distance? As long as it’s not too far?”

Jaster grimaces. “We’re hit?” he asks.

“The ring was,” Quinlan confirms, and arrows the fighter for the shadow of the closest moon, droid fighters right on their tail. “No sustained jumps or it will fry us.”

There's a pause, and then Jaster lets out a breath that’s all wry amusement. “I’ll admit, this isn't the smoothest extraction I've ever witnessed,” he says.

Quinlan snorts. “I went in meaning to poke a few things and maybe plant a bug or two,” he says. “Believe me, I didn’t plan for the last Mand’alor as a piece of wall art.” When R7 flashes coordinates on the small screen, he checks them, but they're nothing he knows off the top of his head. “Fine, R7. Just get us out of here.”

R7 clicks its agreement, and just as they come around the moon and right into a pack of waiting droid fighters, the hyperspace ring starts to glow. There's a lurch, and then stars blur around them in the familiar glowing darkness of hyperspace.

Carefully, gingerly, Quinlan loosens his grip on the controls, then slumps back. realizes, half a second too late, that he’s slumping into Jaster, and grimaces, pulling himself upright again. “Sorry,” he says, and twists as much as he’s able, trying to give the man some space.

Jaster inclines his head. “From the lack of incoming fire, I assume we made it to hyperspace?” he asks.

“Yeah, but it’s going to be a short trip,” Quinlan says grimly. “It’ll get us to the edge of the system, and maybe to the next one, but—”

“But that’s not far, given Dooku's power,” Jaster finishes for him. He rubs a hand over his face, through his short brown hair, and takes a breath. “The Sith have been gone for over a thousand years,” he says quietly. “You're sure that’s what he is?”

Quinlan rubs at his wrist where Dooku's fingers dug in, closes his eyes against the memory of that dark room. The Sith Lord turning, the hood shifting, the familiar face beneath.

The galaxy just gained a whole _host_ of new problems, and Quinlan isn't excited to deal with a single kriffing one of them.

“Yeah,” he says grimly. “I'm sure.”

Sheev Palpatine runs around calling himself Lord Sidious and taking fallen Jedi as apprentices. That’s going to be one hell of a bombshell to drop on the Council, and Quinlan isn't looking forward to it.


	3. Chapter 3

R7’s frantic beeping starts half a second before the whole fighter _wrenches_ , lurching out of hyperspace and straight towards the bulk of a planet-sized moon.

“ _Shit_ ,” Quinlan says loudly, which feels like a massive understatement. He grabs for the controls, trying to haul them out of their dive, but R7 is screeching and the controls aren’t responding and the bright blue surface of the moon is closing fast, the darkness of space giving way to turquoise clouds that they plummet towards at high speeds.

This, Quinlan thinks grimly, would be why Obi-Wan hates flying. Quinlan's never sympathized quite so much before.

“ _Jedi_!” Jaster says, sharp, insistent, and his formerly lax arms snap tight around Quinlan's ribs.

“We’re crashing,” Quinlan says helpfully. “R7, come _on_!”

R7 gives a loud, rude buzz, a spray of sparks rising from around it. With a hiss, Quinlan answers, “ _Yes_ I'm trying to disengage the ring, if you would _help me_ —”

With a sharp crack, the hyperspace ring breaks away, spinning off into the sky, and the fighter is instantly easier to control. Quinlan can't help the sound of relief that jars from his throat as he hauls them up, levels them out fast, and says, “Anywhere I can land, R7?”

The droid beeps, and Quinlan groans. “Open ocean? And what am I supposed to do with you? Float you over my head while we swim to shore?”

The droid trills an affectionate curse at him, a moment before Quinlan's instruments light up, showing a clear expanse of land that doesn’t seem to be bog or sand or anything else overtly dangerous, though it ends in an alarmingly high cliff. Quinlan aims for it as best he can, and the engines aren’t exactly functional, but they’re good enough.

“Hang on to something,” he warns Jaster, flipping switches quickly and casting a wary eye at the open area as it rushes to meet them. “This is going to be bumpy.”

“I see _skilled pilot_ is another thing I can strike from your qualifications,” Jaster says, and one hand goes to the edge of the cockpit, the other still bruisingly tight around Quinlan's waist.

“You can't see shit right now,” Quinlan retorts, and brings the nose up hard. “Landing _now_ —”

The impact is so hard it practically rattles Quinlan's teeth in his head, bounces him up and into the dome of the fighter as the plane hits and skids sideways, spinning with the force of the hit. Torn earth sprays up around them, mud splattering the ship, and R7 screeches in alarm as they skid towards the cliff, and Quinlan snarls, throws up his hands, and puts all of his will into dragging them to a stop. It’s hard; the fighter is _heavy_ , and Quinlan's not exactly Master Fay, legendary for telekinetic use of the Force. He feels the strain slice through him, the burn of muscles without any muscles used, and can't even curse, but—

Their spin slows, their speed eases, and they slide to a halt right at the edge of the cliff, coming to a full stop with the creak of metal and the hiss of the overtaxed engines finally shutting down.

“Kriff,” Quinlan breathes, and lowers his hands. Slumps back, and this time he doesn’t even care that it’s right into Jaster. He’s breathing hard, muscles wanting to tremble with exertion even if it was all mental, and he gives it a long moment before he pushes himself up again. “Everything in one piece?”

“Despite your best efforts,” Jaster says dryly, but he loosens his grip on Quinlan with a careful breath.

R7 whirrs pitifully, and Quinlan snorts. “Yeah, yeah. Thanks for saving our tails, R7, there's a reason you're my favorite.”

With a pleased click, R7 opens the cockpit for them, and Quinlan pushes himself up, eyeing the edge of the cliff barely a meter from the front wheel. “Look at it this way,” he tells Jaster. “Like this you don’t have to see how close we are to the cliff.”

“There's a _cliff_?” Jaster sound _incredibly_ unimpressed. “And a pit of lava on the other side, I assume.”

“Looks like wildflowers, actually,” Quinlan says, obnoxiously cheerful. “Come on, I’ll get us down, unless you want to try falling out of the ship by yourself.”

Jaster snorts quietly. “I think my dignity has suffered enough today,” he says, and holds out a hand.

Quinlan clasps his wrist, hauling him up and slinging Jaster's arm over his shoulder, and says, “Straight ahead of you, just above knee-height and about half a step out, there's a foothold.”

“And here I thought you’d just sling me over your shoulder,” Jaster says dryly, but he manages the step, then the next one up to the edge of the cockpit.

“I could carry you like a princess, if you’d like that more,” Quinlan retorts, “but that’s usually my thing when I'm getting rescued.” It’s Aayla's favorite way to haul him around when he passes out on her, at least, and Obi-Wan’s gotten in on the game a time or two as well. They're both always so smug about it that Quinlan never has the heart to tell them that he hardly _minds_.

“Do you force your fellow Jedi to rescue you often?” Jaster drawls.

Just for that, Quinlan tips them forward and off the edge without warning, a touch of the Force landing them lightly on the ground. Jaster's knees practically buckle, and he stumbles, but Quinlan hauls him back upright with a grunt of effort and says, “Easy. If you fall on your face in that armor I might not be able to get you back up.”

“Arm strength lacking?” Jaster asks, faux-courteous. “That’s a shame.”

Quinlan rolls his eyes. “Look, man, I didn’t _have_ to rescue you. I’d have gotten out without running into Count Stick-Up-His-Ass if I didn’t have to haul you around with me.”

Even though Quinlan's expecting a sharp retort, there's a moment of silence, and then a breath. Jaster pulls away, letting himself practically crumple to the ground, and just sits there for a moment, slumped over. A little concerned, Quinlan frowns, crouching down in front of him and trying to see if he missed a wound somewhere.

“Jaster?” he asks. “If you're bleeding out, I have bacta—”

“No,” Jaster says, and lifts his head, rubbing a hand over his face. “I'm unharmed. But—you're correct. You didn’t need to rescue me, especially as I'm a Mandalorian, but I…appreciate the rescue. And I meant it, when I said you have my gratitude.”

Quinlan doesn’t quite know what to do with that. He pauses, caught off guard, and then says, “Hey, man, I'm a Jedi. Saving people is kind of our thing. Try not to overthink it.”

“Of course,” Jaster says, and when he looks up, there's the curl of a wry smile spreading over his face. “I’ll just take after you, shall I?”

“Yeah, yeah.” A little relieved, Quinlan taps the back of his hand and asks, “How’s the hibernation sickness?”

Jaster grimaces. “I feel like a rancor sat on me, then turned around three times and sat on me again. So still acute, I assume.”

Quinlan's never had the dubious pleasure of being frozen in carbonite, and it’s one experience he’s not eager to try. “I saw a town, while we were crashing,” he says. “Dooku's probably looking for us, but if we keep our heads down, we can probably find somewhere there to hole up. Sleep’s supposed to be the best thing for you right now.”

“I certainly won't object,” Jaster says dryly. His dark skin is grey-tinged with exhaustion, and he looks a little like he’s about to fall over.

For a moment, Quinlan hesitates. Dooku will definitely be looking for them, and with the number of droid fighters he had, he can afford to send some to every planet nearby. If Quinlan's guess is right, they're one system over from Geonosis, and that’s not a hell of a lot of space, especially for a Sith. Dooku will have the same instincts Quinlan does, and he used to be a Jedi; he’ll know to listen to them. Staying out in the open isn't an option, even if Quinlan wants to let Jaster lie down and sleep, maybe recover a little more before they move. If they can find some kind of inn, register under one of Quinlan's spare identities and get a room, they can stay out of sight until Dooku's convinced they're not in the system. But first—

“R7, what’s the chance the comm is working?” Quinlan asks, rising to his feet.

R7 whirrs, beeps, and opens a panel on the nose, the small projector dropping down. It flickers blue, and Quinlan feels a wash of relief that he probably should have grown out of. Even now, though, Tholme means safety, and help, and uncompromising honesty, and Quinlan _wants_ his Master’s help in a way he hasn’t since he found Aayla, all of her memories stripped away.

“Contact Tholme,” he says, a little rough. “Or Master Windu, if you can't get through to Tholme.” Mace will believe him, too, if Quinlan tells him about Palpatine, but—Mace will be cautious about it, and wary, and right now, Quinlan just wants someone who will trust him without reservation.

Grimacing a little, he rubs his wrist where Dooku grabbed him, still able to feel the imprint of his fingers there, and doesn’t let himself waver at the memory of that dark room, the Sith Lord turning. Looks up, instead, and watches the shimmer of blue turn into—

“ _Master Diath_ ,” Quinlan says, torn between horror and utter delight. “Is that a _towel_?”

Perfectly dignified, mustache in fine form, Nico adjusts the towel around his waist, hitching it up a little higher. “Tholme is in the ‘fresher,” he says. “He and T'ra will be out momentarily, but I assumed that if you were calling back so soon, you were in some sort of trouble.”

“You could say that,” Quinlan offers ruefully, and hesitates. Nico hasn’t had a single complementary thing to say about Dooku that Quinlan has ever heard, at least not since Dooku left the Order, but—there's always the chance he won't take what Quinlan's learned well. If that’s the case, though, at the very least Tholme is close at hand, and _he_ will.

“I can't keep the transmission open long,” he says. “But Dooku was on Geonosis. With a prisoner.”

Nico's eyes narrow sharply, and he draws himself up to his full height, then catches his towel before it can slip. “A prisoner? Did you see who it was?”

Quinlan grins. “One better. I rescued him. Jaster Mereel, the—”

“—former Mand’alor, and man who reformed Mandalorian culture singlehandedly,” Nico finishes thoughtfully. “I can see why Dooku would be holding him. Among certain factions on Mandalore and Concord Dawn, there is very little they would not do to have their beloved Mand’alor returned to them. If Dooku is seeking political power—”

“Dooku is the new Sith apprentice,” Quinlan interrupts. “He’s _definitely_ seeking power.”

Nico freezes, face losing about three shades as he takes a step back. Half a moment later, there are hurried footsteps, and Tholme steps in front of the projector, thankfully wearing a bathrobe.

“Nico?” he asks, concerned, and then turns, eyes narrowing when he catches sight of Quinlan. “Quin, are you well?”

“Getting there,” Quinlan says, and refuses to acknowledge the lump in his throat. “Dooku touched me. He’s a Sith, and I saw his Master.”

Tholme looks very, very grave. “You're in danger,” he says, assumption more than question, and Quinlan nods.

“We made it off Geonosis,” he says. “But I need cover for me and Jaster Mereel to be wandering around together on this moon.”

“I can see to it,” Nico says after a moment. “Knol has several contacts who can be helpful here. Jaster is—older, I assume—”

Quinlan shakes his head. “He was trapped in carbonite, he still looks like he did right before he supposedly died. Tholme—”

“Yes,” Tholme says quietly. “The Master, who was it?”

“Palpatine,” Quinlan answers, and watches the realization settle, slow and horrifying. After a moment, Tholme closes his eyes, then takes a breath and inclines his head.

“The Council won't accept such a thing without proof,” he warns. “But I will take it to them immediately. We will come find you as soon as we can. Quinlan, stay _safe_.”

“You know me,” Quinlan says, giving him a grin. “I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”

Tholme snorts softly. “The only time I have _ever_ seen you quiet,” he says, “is when Obi-Wan took off his—”

“ _Master_ ,” Quinlan says, aggrieved. “Even if you're sleeping with Dooku's bitter ex—”

Nico splutters. “If anyone is bitter, it’s _Dooku_ —”

“—that doesn’t mean you have to drag out _my_ ex—”

“That boy was never dating you, Quinlan. You wouldn’t have sulked _nearly_ as much if he was—”

“Perhaps,” T'ra says, placing her hands over Nico and Tholme's mouths deliberately, “the Sith Lord should take precedence over squabbling, my dears.”

Nico harrumphs, but pulls her hand away to say, “I’ll have Knol send you the documents immediately, Quinlan. And when the mighty council finally deigns to—”

T'ra puts her hand back over his mouth, more firmly this time. “We’ll contact you,” she says, and gives Quinlan a smile. “Try to limit transmissions, and stay safe.”

“You too,” Quinlan says. “It _is_ Palpatine, I saw him.”

“I believe you,” Tholme says without pause, nudging T'ra’s arm down. “There will be proof, and we will find it. Perhaps for something of this magnitude, Master Fay could be convinced to leave the Outer Rim and lend her skills, Nico.”

“I’ll contact Antilles,” Nico agrees grimly. “He parted ways with her very recently, from what Knol told me.”

T'ra blinks, cocking her head. “I thought he had died,” she says. “Again.”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Yes, so I've heard,” he mutters. “Quinlan—”

“I'm going,” Quinlan says, and takes a breath. “Force be with you, Masters.”

“Force keep you well,” Tholme murmurs. “Quinlan, be _careful_. Take no unnecessary risks. The Council—”

“—moves as slowly as a pack of semi-sentient slime molds,” Nico says disdainfully, though a guy who used to swap spit with Dooku probably shouldn’t be allowed to look so high and mighty. Morally speaking. “But we will do our best to hurry them along. Starting immediately.”

“Thanks, Nico,” Quinlan says, grinning. “Dooku sends his love—”

The transmission cuts off with a decisive click, and Quinlan snorts, rocking back on his heels. He takes a second to breathe, to assess, and then closes his eyes and tugs at one of his dreadlocks, twisting it absently. Hiding and waiting. That’s the mission here. And—it’s not unfamiliar, given Quinlan's specialty, no matter what Obi-Wan wants to say about his patience. But at the same time, this is a hell of a lot bigger than smugglers and crime syndicates. This is a _Sith Lord_.

This is a Sith Lord in command of the Galactic Republic, and the very thought makes Quinlan's stomach turn.

Still. Quinlan's a spy, not a Council member. Even if he was on Coruscant right now, he wouldn’t be in the middle of things, wouldn’t be part of all of this except to give his own testimony. None of his contacts have ever breathed a word about something like this, so it’s probably they don’t know, and Palpatine is from _Naboo_. Quinlan's Outer Rim resources are worthless on a peaceful Mid Rim world like Naboo. He can put out some feelers, probably, but—

If he’s not careful, he’ll let Palpatine know they're on to him. That sounds like a bad idea, honestly.

“R7,” he says out loud. “Think you can get the ship under cover somehow?” There’s a stand of trees on the far side of the meadow, and the fighter isn't _that_ big.

There's a whirr as R7 assesses, and then a chirp of confirmation, so there's at least that dealt with. It won't hide the ship from more thorough scans, but it will be enough as long as they don’t draw attention to themselves.

“Cool,” Quinlan says. “Send me our coordinates so I can figure out where we are, and then move it. I can disguise you as—”

R7 beeps in offense, loud and pointed.

Quinlan rolls his eyes. “Fine, if you want to stay with the ship that’s up to you. I was just _offering_ , boltbag.”

R7 clatters at him rudely, and Quinlan flips it off. “I _said_ thank you already.”

With a quiet snort, Jaster turns his head towards Quinlan. “You know where we are?” he asks.

Quinlan checks the coordinates that R7 sent to his comm. “Probably,” he says, frowning a little as he tries to call up some kind of memory of the area. “We’re in the Cridal system, on one of the moons of a gas giant.”

“Kidolias or Chimund?” Jaster suggests. “Is it red or white?”

Quinlan glances towards the sky, where the curve of the planet fills the horizon. “White,” he says.

“Kidolias,” Jaster concludes. “The moon would likely be Kesof, in that case.”

“It’s not a desert,” Quinlan says absently, trying to call up the inhabited areas of the system from memory. Master Nu made him catalogue all of them in this sector, once, when he broke one of the windows in the Temple. Not that it had kept Quinlan out of trouble for long, but—Tholme probably appreciated the effort. “I think we’re on Krilor.”

“The gambler’s vacation spot,” Jaster says, dry. “How fortunate.”

“Hey, man, at least we know no one’s going to look twice at some less-than-airtight fake identities,” Quinlan reminds him. “And unless Dooku has a lot more ties to the criminal underworld than I was able to pick up on, he won't be welcome here, either.”

Jaster's breath is heavy on his exhale. “A fair point,” he allows. “It means whatever town you saw is less likely to welcome _us_ , however.”

“Nico will come through on a cover,” Quinlan says, and hopes it’s true. He’s heard a lot of fun things about Master Knol Ven’nari, not the least of which is her ability to set things on fire and give every bandit within three sectors a massive headache, and he’s hoping her ability with a cover story is just as impressive.

Jaster makes a politely skeptical sound, then asks, “How far to the town?”

Right. The other hard part here is going to be hauling Jaster that far when he can barely walk and definitely can't see. Quinlan pulls a face, but ducks under one of the wings and approaches the cliff, peering down towards the ocean below. It’s pale, crystalline blue, and the shore is white sand, curving away to come to a point crowned with a collection of buildings. It’s a fair walk, but Quinlan can jump them down the cliff and save them from having to walk all the way around to where the road starts, at least.

“Farther than you probably want to hear,” he says frankly. “But we can manage it.”

“We’ll have to,” Jaster says grimly. “I hope you have more clothes than just your robes with you, Jedi. Dooku will be looking for a Mandalorian and a Jedi traveling together, and I would prefer he not find us.”

He also knows what Quinlan looks like, which isn't ideal, but Quinlan can put his hair up, try to make himself look a little different. There's no hiding his _qukuuf_ , but—most outsiders can't tell the difference between the clan markings at first glance, and even if they can, Quinlan's hardly the only member of the Vos clan to flee his aunt’s reign.

“Means you’ll have to leave your armor behind,” Quinlan points out, and Jaster grimaces, pressing his fingertips to the symbol on his pauldrons.

“Believe me, I'm aware,” he says ruefully, and starts unbuckling the catches with clumsy fingers.

Quinlan doesn’t offer to help; he can already tell it won't be welcome. “Well, at least now I know how to get it off if I ever need to strip a Mandalorian,” he says, grinning, and ducks back around the fighter, hauling himself up into the cockpit to find his pack. He’d been packing for leave, where all he planned to do was sleep and recover from his time as the favorite punching bag for a Hutt on his last mission, so he’s got a few changes of clothes and a credit chip with enough funds for whatever they need, and he checks it all over quickly and then strips off his robe and tunics.

His lightsaber goes in the secret pocket on the inside of the pack, hidden from prying eyes and scans alike, and Quinlan pulls his hair up, wrapping a band around it and tying it loosely. There’s not much he can do about his face except stay indoors, away from anywhere one of Dooku's droids might catch a glimpse of him, but that’s fine. There’s not exactly going to be a lot of mingling Quinlan wants to do on a moon that specifically caters to the worst and the wealthiest in their down time. Not a lot they _can_ do, if they want to keep a low profile. Scumbags have a tendency to sell out to the highest bidder, and Quinlan's pretty sure Dooku will pay a pretty credit to get Jaster back.

“Keep as many systems off as possible,” he warns R7, slinging his pack over his shoulder. “But monitor for incoming comm transmissions every few hours and send them on to me—”

R7 beeps rudely, and Quinlan makes a face at it. “Yeah, yeah, you’ve been in service since Tholme was a twinkle in some dusty library tome’s eye, whatever. Just don’t get caught.”

The droid laughs at him. It’s Tholme's favorite, though, so Quinlan's used to that at this point. He rolls his eyes at it and drops back down to the ground, then asks, “Good for me to stick your armor in the fighter?”

“I certainly don’t want you to leave it on the ground,” Jaster retorts, setting the last piece on top of the neat pile. He still has his blaster, though, which is an instinct Quinlan approves of, and there's a discrete vibroblade tucked into the top of his boot. Crouching down, Quinlan tugs his pant leg a little to cover it better, then lifts a hand, concentrating for a moment. The ringing in his head from stopping the fighter still aches a little, like a pulled muscle, but the pieces of Jaster's arm swirl up in neat procession and stack themselves in the cockpit.

“We’re going to have to jump down the face of the cliff unless we want to walk a few extra kilometers,” Quinlan warns. “Hope you don’t mind heights.”

“It’s not like I could see them even if I did,” Jaster says pointedly, but reaches out—

Quinlan flinches back, half a second before he can make contact with the now-bare skin of Quinlan's shoulder. “Let me,” he says. “Try not to grab skin, okay?”

One brow rising, Jaster waits for Quinlan to slide underneath his arm, bracing him, before he curls his fingers into Quinlan's shirt. “A condition I need to know about, Jedi?”

Tholme managed to keep the fact that Quinlan can read people, not just objects like most Kiffar with psychometry, quiet the whole time he was in training, and outside of T'ra, Obi-Wan, and Mace Windu, not a lot of people know. Quinlan would really rather keep it that way. It makes assholes underestimate him, which is pretty much always in his best interest. Dooku knowing is already a pain in the ass, but—clearly he doesn’t know what Quinlan saw, or there's no way they would have made it off Geonosis alive.

“I’m a Kiffar, and you were just frozen in carbonite,” Quinlan says. “I touch your shirt and I'm going to get stuck in carbonite, too, and probably drop you over the edge of the cliff.”

It even has the benefit of being true. Just…not the whole truth.

With a soft snort, Jaster shifts his grip until he’s even further away from touching Quinlan's skin. “I didn’t realize there were Kiffar Jedi. Aren’t your clans jealously protective of their children?”

“There aren’t many,” is all Quinlan says. “Why? Mandalorians run into that same problem?”

Jaster scoffs, which isn't actually an answer, given the Mandalorian tradition of adoption. Before he can say anything, though, Quinlan's comm beeps, and he checks it with a frown. It’s from an unknown code, but when Quinlan opens the attachment, holos of documents fill the air, and he grins. “Looks like Master Ven’nari came through,” he says. “We’ve got documents. And—”

Quinlan catches sight of one particular line, and his mouth snaps shut. With a sound of outrage, he flips through the papers, checking, and—

The third one in the file is incredibly familiar, incredibly, _obnoxiously_ obvious. _Certificate of Marriage_ is written at the top in fancy lettering, and the assumed names from the previous documents are signed on the lines below with a flourish.

Apparently Nico is a vindictive bastard, just like his ex. Quinlan maybe potentially shouldn’t have made all those cracks about dating Dooku to the man responsible for putting together their undercover story.

“Quinlan?” Jaster asks in concern, grip tightening faintly. “What happened?”

“We’re married,” Quinlan says grimly. “According to all of our fancy new paperwork, we’re married and this is our _honeymoon_.”

Jaster's incredulous, disbelieving silence says _everything_.


	4. Chapter 4

There's a town on the far side of the bay, but it’s a town in the same way that a haunted house is a residence, and it manages to have even less charm.

“Great,” Quinlan mutters, because it’s one thing to play at being scumbags on vacation. The fact that this town probably doesn’t have a seedy underbelly is going to make a lot of his talents useless, though, and he doesn’t like that at all.

Half-collapsed over his shoulder, pasty and breathing hard, Jaster lifts his head. “A problem?” he asks, sounding mostly resigned to it at this point. Hibernation sickness would probably do that to anyone.

Quinlan hesitates, not entirely sure. “Maybe,” he says after a moment. “It’s not a town, it’s a resort.”

“Far less useful when it comes to hiding,” Jaster mutters, and when Quinlan shoots him a surprised look, one brow rising, he snorts. “You're not the only one who’s done undercover work, Jedi. Mandalorians are honorable mercenaries. We take whatever jobs our employer offers, and do them well.”

It makes Quinlan wonder what job Jango is doing for Dooku, if he’s still in that mindset or if he let it die with Jaster. Now’s definitely not the time to say anything like that, though, so he just huffs and offers, “Well, I hope you're up for this one. We’re going to have to act married or people are going to notice something’s up.”

Jaster doesn’t quite make a face, but—the thought is definitely there. “People will notice something regardless, seeing as we’re two strangers on a beach with no luggage, and I'm obviously unwell.”

Quinlan grins, because really, he’s been doing this kind of stuff for _years_ , and regardless of what Obi-Wan or R7 want to say about his record, most of his missions at the very least end in success. “I’ve got a plan for that, don’t worry. All you have to do is look like you're about to collapse.”

“That,” Jaster says dryly, “won't be any sort of problem, I assure you.” His arm tightens over Quinlan's shoulders as he tries to haul himself up straighter, and Quinlan has to catch his wrist before his hand can hit the skin over Quinlan's collarbone.

“That offer to carry you is still open,” Quinlan says, smirking. “I think one of us is supposed to carry the other over the threshold anyway. Seeing as we’re married.”

Jaster looks unimpressed by this line of reasoning. “Lamentably, I assume you married me for my money, not my physical prowess. I'm but a weak and feeble old man with a charming young husband who’s going to rob my children blind after my inevitable and highly suspicious death.”

Quinlan laughs before he can help himself, and his whole body aches, low-level and aggravating, but he hitches Jaster up a little higher as they stumble over a patch of particularly soft sand. “Don’t sell yourself short, you're still cute. For an old man.”

“I may not be able to punch you, but I can still pull your hair,” Jaster threatens, and turns his head like he’s listening to something, a frown flickering over his face.

“You could, but I’d probably like it,” Quinlan says cheerfully. Far ahead of them, right where sand turns into manicured grass, there's a speeder taking off, and Quinlan marks its path straight towards them and takes a breath. “Looks like they're coming to welcome us. What hospitality.”

“Almost on par with Dooku's,” Jaster says, and grimaces as he stumbles. “I'm—”

“Drugged,” Quinlan tells him, and puts on his best worried and exhausted expression. It’s probably not as hard as it should be. Between the Hutt-baiting, the Dooku-baiting, and the crash landing, he feels like someone played gravball with his whole body. “But don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll make sure you're taken care of.”

Jaster's expression is one of exquisite suffering. “One of us is going to end up a widower by the time our honeymoon is over.”

“Yeah, but this is _Krilor_. I'm sure everyone’s used to that happening. There's probably a shirt.” Quinlan eyes the pair of heavily armed guards on the speeder as it closes in, and then says, “Two guards, a Nautolan and a Dug. I see three blasters, and the Nautolan’s got a vibrosword.”

“Subtle,” is Jaster's less-than-impressed verdict. “I wonder if they know how to use it.”

“Judging by the size of her biceps, probably,” Quinlan says. “They’re bigger than mine.”

“It’s not as though that’s saying much,” Jaster offers, droll, and Quinlan rolls his eyes. His biceps are plenty impressive. Obi-Wan has always been jealous of the way Quinlan can put on muscle, at the very least.

“Remember, you're supposed to be madly in love with my charms,” Quinlan says, and then waves a hand at the guards and their speeder, like he’s trying desperately to flag them down. “Hey! Stop! Over here, please!”

“Oh no,” Jaster mutters, but Quinlan ignores him, keeping his attention on the speeder as it slows and comes to a stop a few meters from them.

“Is everything all right here?” the Nautolan asks, leaping down into the sand. One hand is close to her blaster, but Quinlan can't sense any outright hostile intent from her, and he lets his expression slide into relief, taking one more step towards her.

“White Dawn, are they here?” he asks. “Are you with them?”

The Nautolan’s tentacles rustle, and she glances back at the Dug, who tips a foot at her in his version of a shrug. “White Dawn?” she repeats, frowning. “Is that your…company?”

That’s the politest term Quinlan's ever heard for _gang_ , but he can roll with it. “No,” he says, and Jaster's legs choose that moment to give way, almost toppling them both into the sand. Quinlan hits the ground on his knees, and it’s not entirely an act as he wraps himself more securely around Jaster as he curls in on himself, looking even paler than before. “They kidnapped us, we were on our way here for our honeymoon—”

“Farking hells,” the Dug says disgustedly, and hits the comm on the speeder. “Turf wars, keep an eye out for the White Sun organization.”

“Quite the honeymoon,” the Nautolan says, wry, and crouches down on Jaster's other side. “You need medical attention, sir?”

Jaster is wheezing faintly, probably from the sheer strain of having been going for so long, but he manages to shake his head. “Drugged,” he gets out. “Will wear off. Sleep.”

“They’re looking for us,” Quinlan says, meeting the Nautolan’s huge eyes. From long exposure to Kit, he knows that Nautolans can sense pheromones, the basics of emotion. It’s easy enough to call up a thread of fear, fear of Dooku and Sidious and fear for Tholme, one of the only other people who knows Sidious’s identity. He lets it bleed into his mind, color his voice as he says, “I need to get Jas under cover, I can't—”

“Easy, easy,” the Nautolan says soothingly, and as the Dug swings over, she twitches a tentacle at him. Something hard in his face eases faintly, and he nods, then settles himself on Quinlan's free side. “There’s a retreat just ahead that prizes security and anonymity. We can take you there for now and see about booking you a room. Do you know how many are after you?”

“Droids,” Quinlan says, and when the Nautolan scoops Jaster up, right out of Quinlan's grip, he makes a sound of dismay and rises after her.

“Rea’s got him,” the Dug says gruffly, and reaches for him. “She’ll get him back to the retreat safely. Our security’s tight, so you don’t have to worry about anyone getting in.”

“Especially droids,” the Nautolan says, nose wrinkling. “Security droids? Or something else?”

“I don’t know,” Quinlan says, and shies away from the Dug’s touch like he’s skittish or something. “There were so many of them, and we got away but they shot us down—”

The guards exchange looks, and the Dug sweeps a foot at Quinlan. “Come on,” he says. “We’ve got room for you both on the speeder if we squish.”

“Still got credits on you?” the Nautolan asks cheerfully, like it’s a joke and not a prod. Quinlan has very few illusions that them being scooped up off the beach is entirely a selfless gesture; it’s probably equal parts genuine worry that some sort of turf war will disturb the other guests and probably the hope of dragging in a few new customers.

“I have the chip,” Quinlan says, braces himself, and lets the Dug catch his elbow with a foot. Focuses as the rush of images rises, reaches for the future instead of the past—

And almost trips over the Dug’s corpse, half-buried in the sand as the tide comes in.

Quinlan doesn’t have to fake the sound of alarm that wrenches from his throat, and he jerks away, steps back sharply. The image vanishes as soon as the Dug lifts his foot, and in the Nautolan’s arms Jaster twitches.

“Quin—” he starts, and Quinlan closes his eyes, pulls himself back and shuts out the memory. The vision. It hasn’t happened yet, but—

It’s going to.

“Sorry,” he says to the Dug, rough in his throat. “Sorry, I'm—”

“A Kiffar,” the Dug says after a moment, and lowers his foot without grabbing Quinlan. “Control’s not so great right now, kid?”

There's enough discoloring around the Dug’s whiskers—their version of going grey—that Quinlan doesn’t object to the nickname.

“My husband?” Jaster asks, and it’s dignified for all he’s grasping blindly at thin air as the Nautolan holds him. “Where is he?”

“Right here,” Quinlan says, and ducks closer. It takes effort to brace himself, to narrow his control down to a tight lock, but he grabs Jaster's outstretched hand and squeezes. Sees a rocky, dusty stretch of ground, a tank rising, the sound of a cannon firing, and lets go before he hits the end of the vision. “I just need a minute, I promise.”

“Both of you look like you could use a few _hours_ ,” the Nautolan says, and herds Quinlan back towards the speeder without touching him. “Baltu—”

“I’ll stay here and coordinate,” the Dug says. “Better to let you take them, Rea, and we need patrols to sweep the beach.”

The Nautolan smirks at him. “You just don’t want to deal with the front desk,” she says, but she hauls Jaster into the speeder and settles him in the back seat, then gestures Quinlan into the one next to her up front.

“If you do, you're delusional,” the Dug retorts, turning his back on them, and raises a foot to wave at another speeder approaching over the hill, from the direction of the road.

“Baltu’s an alarmist,” the Nautolan says reassuringly. “The front desk will be happy to set you up with a room, and the level of anonymity they maintain is head and shoulders above any other retreat on Krilor. You’ll be safe with us.”

For a price, of course, Quinlan thinks, but it’s already easier than he expected and he’s not about to say anything. Someone in the position they're pretending to be in probably wouldn’t, anyway. “Thank you,” he says, and makes it heartfelt and sincere. Gives her a career hustler’s smile, and says, “Jas and I are very grateful.”

The Nautolan looks him over, and when her grin comes again, it has _teeth_. “I understand completely, _sir_. Let’s get you back to your honeymoon, hm?”

Well. If she thinks she’s figured out his secret, she probably won't go digging. Quinlan's definitely not the first boytoy she’s seen, either. He grins back, hauling himself into the seat, and settles carefully, trying not to let any skin touch the seat itself. “Thank you, we appreciate it.”

Jaster, in the backseat, closes his eyes, but Quinlan's entirely certain he’s rolling them so hard they're about to fall out of his head.

The whole madcap mess of a rescue is at least a little blurred, but Jaster manages to lose the last hour of it entirely. He closes his eyes while the Jedi is spinning a surprisingly convincing lie about being kidnapped by a rival shipping business that no one in the room actually believes is a legitimate shipping business, and just—loses time.

Given the way he was feeling at that moment, it’s less that surprising to open his eyes somewhere else entirely, what feels like a long time later.

It’s dark, but not as dark as it was when Jaster was completely blind; he can make out shadows, shapes of furniture in a wide, open room. The sound of the sea is clear, and when Jaster turns his head, he can see it bathed in light from the other moons in the sky.

For a moment, he just stares, some kernel of bewildered relief blooming in his chest. Hibernation sickness, especially hibernation sickness caused by an extended stay in carbonite, isn't a predictable thing, and not all of the effects always fade. Jaster hadn’t _thought_ he would be blind forever, and even if he had been there are plenty of options to regain function, but—well. It had been a momentary fear, among so many others.

Slowly, arduously, every muscle aching like he just suffered through his first day of training again, Jaster pushes himself up on one elbow, then pauses, looking around the room as his eyes adjust. There’s a balcony with steps leading down to the water, and he can't hear any other voices around them, so either the walls are exceptionally thick or they’re secluded, neither of which he would object to. Quinlan's bag is sitting on a chair, slumped beside Jaster's shirt and pants, and Jaster wants to be annoyed that the dratted Jedi stripped him while he was unconscious, but it’s a warm night, and the sheet over him is already plenty stifling enough. He can be logical, even where Jedi are concerned.

It rankles, though. Jaster is—was—the Mand’alor, united the Mandalorian clans and brought them into a new era, and having to be hauled out of some bastard’s citadel like a damsel in a bedtime story is infuriating. Especially when the one doing the hauling is a Jedi, and managed to see every last one of Jaster's weak moments, up to and including getting hauled around like a sack of grain by a bruiser of a Nautolan. Jango would—

Jaster closes his eyes for a long, long moment, breathes in through his nose. Breathes out, slow and steady, and reminds himself that Jango is still alive. Alive and working for Dooku, from what Jaster managed to catch. There's no way he knows that Dooku had Jaster up on his wall like a piece of macabre art, because Jaster knows his son; if Jango knew, he would have torn the whole place apart and not stopped for anything, Sith included.

His memories after the ambush are scattered. Jango pulling his helmet off, and Myles’s face in the medbay, and darkness.

Monstross, grinning, as smug and cruel as anything, and then the carbonite.

Looking at it logically, Montross stole his body before he was fully dead, likely out of the medbay or in transit. Left a decoy, maybe, so that Jango wouldn’t realize, and then hauled Jango away to freeze him and sell him to the highest bidder. Jaster has to wonder how many hands he passed through before Dooku got him, or if Montross sold him to the Sith directly, the perfect prisoner to use as leverage against the Mandalorians.

Blowing out a breath, Jaster runs a hand through his hair, then grimaces. He needs a bath. He needs revenge, and Dooku's head on a pike. Preferably mounted right next to anyone from the Death Watch that Jaster can get his hands on, for the killing of his men. Jango's men.

At least Jango survived, Jaster tells himself, and carefully pushes himself all the way up to siting. He forces himself to focus elsewhere, on the sea, on the moonlight, on the sound of the shower that he hadn’t noticed before. A real water shower, though given the fact that this is a luxury retreat Jaster isn't surprised. His intrepid rescuer, presumably, and Jaster has…very little idea what to expect, in all honesty.

All the Jedi he’s met have been staid, stuck-up fools, too caught up in their enlightenment to ever bother dirtying their hands with the real world. Not warriors, but hermits, more interested in meditating than martial matters. As an academic, Jaster can understand the draw of a scholar’s pursuits, but—

It makes them _boring_. Jaster is deeply offended that the Mandalorian people’s traditional enemy can manage to be both boring and dangerous without taking away from either attribute.

So far, however, Quinlan has managed to be a surprise. He was sharp-tongued with Dooku, teasing with Dooku's apparent ex, gentle with his Master. And with Jaster, he’s been…well able to rise to the occasion, at the very least, though from his words Jaster gets the impression that outright confrontations aren’t a normal end to his missions. A spy and infiltrator, it sounds like, more than a warrior, and Jaster knows the value of undercover missions, but he still wonders what kind of Jedi takes them on.

His blindness and Quinlan's loose robes prevented Jaster from figuring out any part of his appearance from touch, beyond the fact that he’s tall. And then, after the robes were abandoned, Jaster's fuzzy head and Quinlan's status as a Kiffar kept him from touching then. It’s frustrating, because Jaster is good at reading people, is used to sizing someone up and filing them away under a neat label as soon as he meets them, and sight is a large part of that. Actions, appearance, intent, and Jaster hasn’t been able to gather more than bits and pieces of those where Quinlan is concerned.

And now they're married, because some wretched Jedi on the other end of a comm channel had to decide to grow a sense of humor.

Jaster grimaces, but—he can play the rich smuggler. He can pretend to be smitten with whatever fast-talking conman the Jedi Order sends out as its undercover agent. He can even bear allying himself with the Jedi if it will end Dooku's existence and reunite him with his son. That doesn’t mean he has to like it, however.

As if to test his resolve, the shower shuts off at that moment, and Jaster raises his head. There's a crack of light visible beneath the fresher door, vivid in the darkness, and Jaster watches it for a heartbeat, relieved to have his sight back at all, let alone to have it back in full the way he seems to. Hibernation sickness isn't the sort of thing he can get over with a hypo or a pill, but at the very least it’s not so bad as to land him in the medbay.

It’s been a long time, from the way Quinlan reacted to him. Jaster has no idea _how_ long, and he hadn’t thought to ask before, his head too fogged. Some of that fog still lingers, but it’s lifting. Jaster can at least connect two thoughts now without feeling like it’s a monumental task. It’s more than enough cognitive ability to corner Quinlan and go through a whole list of questions Jaster has been building, and the first one will be about the state of Mandalore right now. Dooku's comment about forgotten culture and surrendered pride prickles at him, especially in context of the mention of a Duchess.

Titles like that tend to originate on Kalevala. Between Dooku's words and Jaster's memory of the size of the New Mandalorian faction on Kalevala, suspicion makes his skin prickle. If one of the blasted New Mandalorians has managed to take control, has managed to _take over_ —

Jango should be Mand’alor. Even if the fighting force of the True Mandalorians is gone, he should still have enough support on Mandalore and Concord Dawn to have taken the position, to have led their people. Jango knows his duty, too, knows the importance of holding to tradition and keeping the Mandalorians moving in the right direction. If he didn’t become Mand’alor, Jaster fears something went very, very wrong.

With a spill of light, the fresher door opens, and Jaster looks up, opening his mouth to start demanding answers. And then, just as quickly, he loses every last word that might have been in his head.

For an instant, he almost thinks there's been a mistake, or maybe that the retreat they're in provides companions, because the man emerging from the other room is nothing like what he expects. A Kiffar, quite clearly, with golden tattoos and dark skin, and Jaster's eyes linger on the curve of heavy muscle, lean and functional, a scattering of scars. There's too much to look at, because he has nothing on but a towel slung around his hips, one wrapped loosely around his dreadlocks that’s slipping down over his shoulders. A strong face, with another flash of gold across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, and—

“Oh, hey, you're awake,” Quinlan's voice says, and it’s this man. This man, who’s giving Jaster a grin, just a flash of white teeth in the low light. Just a _taunt_ , standing there wet and languid, like Jaster isn't a simple man with common wants despite his office.

Like Jaster isn't finding it very, very hard to breathe through the surge of sheer _want_ that’s spreading low and hot in his stomach.

“Apparently,” Jaster manages, and just barely keeps it droll. “Your powers of observation stun me.”

That’s not what’s managed to leave him almost speechless, but—this is a Jedi. This is a Jedi, and Jaster's current husband for the sake of this charade, and—

Well. If Jaster's eyes follow the line of Quinlan's hipbone down to where the draping towel shows a flash of muscular thighs, he can't be blamed. There's only so much temptation a man can be expected to resist.

Quinlan snorts, but turns away, and Jaster drags is gaze over the breadth of his shoulders, the way his torso narrows. There are more scars, pale against dark brown skin, and droplets of water sliding down towards the edge of the towel where it dips just enough to show the curve of his ass.

Deliberately, determinedly, Jaster drags his eyes up to where Quinlan is pulling a pair of loose, soft pants out of his bag. Realizes what they are, half a second before Quinlan pulls his towel off, and can't help another glance down, taking in the full view. It is, objectively, an even nicer view than the one beyond the balcony, even if in practice it’s attached to a Jedi.

“Your timing’s great, by the way,” Quinlan says over his shoulder, dragging the pants up. Jaster is entirely, all too pleasantly aware that there's absolutely nothing underneath them. “As soon as you fainted, they panicked and tossed me at a woman they call their head of hospitality. I'm pretty sure she was a shark or something in a past life.”

From the tone of his voice, it’s something to be admired more than held against her. Jaster raises a brow as Quinlan turns, still shirtless and apparently content to stay that way, and asks, “She enjoyed your storytelling skills?”

“She enjoyed the credits I bribed her with,” Quinlan says cheerfully, shoving his pack to the floor and then dropping into the chair, long legs stretched out in front of him. Jaster should be able to control himself better, but he finds his eyes going to the stretch of fabric over Quinlan's thighs, then higher. Even in the low light, he can see a scattering of dark hair, an intriguing shadow against the cloth.

Jaster forces his eyes up, forces himself to breathe. It’s been far too long since he found a partner if he can't take his eyes off a _Jedi_.

But _hells_ , if all Jedi look like this beneath their plain, roughspun robes, it’s good for the morale of every Mandalorian that they keep them on, isn't it?

“Sufficient credits, I assume,” Jaster says, and meets Quinlan's gaze. “They’ll hide us?”

Quinlan's brows rise, and he grins. “Yeah,” he says. “They're convinced you're a valuable new customer and I'm a shameless gold-digger. They're not going to rat us out as long as we keep our heads down. Hey, man, you're seeing again?”

“Apparently,” Jaster says dryly, and—well. More of his humor is directed at himself than at Quinlan, but Quinlan doesn’t need to know that. “I feel less as though most of my major muscle groups were left behind in the carbonite, as well.”

“Good,” Quinlan says, and Jaster can see clearly that he means it, honest and easy, like his smile. It makes Jaster's fingers itch to touch, and he remembers his threat to pull Quinlan's hair, the tempting, taunting _you could, but I’d probably like it_ that’s so much more appealing to consider now. Quinlan's dreads are long and scattered with gold and green beads, and Jaster can remember how they felt against his face when Quinlan was practically sitting in his lap. Can imagine how they’d feel around his fingers in the same position, only this time with his arm around Quinlan's waist and nothing between them.

The heat in the pit of his stomach is a dangerous thing, especially if they're going to be sharing close quarters for however long it takes the Jedi Council to act. _Hells_.

Jaster forces himself to breathe, to think with a higher intelligence than his cock, even in the presence of a beautiful man, and closes his eyes for a moment. “No sign of the droids?”

“Not yet. R7 hasn’t contacted me, at least, and it said it would keep an eye out.” When Jaster opens his eyes, Quinlan is distractedly twisting his dreads as he leans forward, digging through his bag with one hand. “I sent Master Ven’nari the details of our story, since we had to make a lot of it up on the fly, and she said she’d seed documents to corroborate it, as long as they don’t look too hard.”

“They shouldn’t, given the usual clientele,” Jaster says dryly. “Two people on the run is likely not the most suspicious thing they’ve seen this month.”

“Or this week, from how unimpressed the lady at the front desk was,” Quinlan says, grinning. He straightens with a datapad, then says, “There’s a bunch of food in the other room, and a bar on the deck. They gave us the honeymoon suite, so we’re about three hundred meters from the next closest room, and from what I can tell that one’s unoccupied. I was going to poke around a little right before dawn, see who else is here. If someone recognizes either of us and rats to Dooku, it’ll suck.”

“An understatement if I ever heard one.” Jaster leans back, shifting to brace himself against the headboard, and then pauses. It’s a honeymoon suite, very clearly, and that means—

“Is there another bed?” he asks, and tries not to let any trace of emotion touch his voice. Bad enough already that the Jedi can likely read it in him, but—there's no need to give _everything_ away on a silver platter

“It’s big enough for three rancors and a bantha, you can share that one,” Quinlan says, rolling his eyes, and rises, approaching the far side. Since he’s technically correct, Jaster can't even argue, but it’s very, very difficult not to stare when he shoves back the covers and collapses on the mattress like an exceptionally wicked dream.

Jaster _can_ share, technically. He has self-control. But—

Well. He’s been frozen in carbonite for who knows how many years, has escaped a Sith, has survived a betrayal that nearly killed him. Something to indulge in, something to lose himself in that’s sweet and enjoyable and distracting would hardly go amiss.

That something just happens to be the idea of making Quinlan absolutely, blessedly incoherent, but given the man sprawled beside him in bed—his new _husband_ —Jaster is sure that no one in the whole galaxy could blame him.


End file.
